Further than some think!

As I sat watching the news & weather this morning, it seemed most of the rain was to be in the West of the country with the odd shower in my neck of the woods, but recovering from a chest cold all week I didn't want to take any chances so decided to play safe & stay in the Dale.

I knew the river was on its bones and desperately needs rain to flush it through & top it up so the place I was heading for isn't suited to nymphs at the best of times so  I had to take my chances with either spiders or dry fly, so with this in mind I lightened the load and simply shoved a box of each into my pocket with a spool of tippet & off I went.

Sure enough the river was on its bones, & the rain had started to fall as I reached my start point.

As I sat under the big tree gazing out across the shallow flats the rain came down harder and for almost an hour I sat taking shelter from it but when it stopped what a difference to the air it made, it felt clean & un - stuffy and more importantly fish were rising.

My mind was made up for me Dries it would be, so with this in mind I stuck on a fly that has never let me down on this part of the river and always produced the goods for me & today was no different, first cast across under the overhanging trees and up popped the first Grayling of the day.






I had noticed a lot of smaller fish also rising where I took this first Grayling so decided to have a cast back over them and see what they were.

The answer certainly raised my eyebrow!

Now correct me if Im wrong Id say this is a Salmon par, but how the hell did they get up here? 

Unless they can fly there is a question of the fish getting up not one set of waterfalls but 3, this being the biggest of them all Aysgarth Middle Falls.






I covered a couple more smaller fish rises and the same results, Salmon Par. Well that confirmed my 1st capture, it seems the Salmon are further up the river than some think or they have been released this far up without our knowledge, am sure the club's Secretary will investigate more when he reads this.

I seen a nice Grayling sip down a large terrestrial which hadn't long hatched out after the rain had ceased, so positioned myself to see if it would come up again. No movement for over 5 minutes so I decided to investigate with my fly & see if I could tempt it up. 2nd cast up it came and sipped down my artificial.

And released back to fight another day as always.

Another couple of smaller Grayling followed as the rain started again, and I decided that I wasnt getting any wetter than I already was so decided to head back to the car as I didn't want to add to the cold Im trying to get rid of.

Heading back to the car I noticed that the blackberries are now fully ripe, just waiting to be picked.

Their is an abundance of fungi covering the floor of the small wood.

The beech trees are starting to loose their leaves which are turning a rust colour, it wont be long until natures colours change and the fair weather anglers leave the bank-side and leave the ladies of the stream to the seasoned Grayling Anglers...I cant wait my season is just starting!